Tarsem Singh, or just Tarsem, as he’s known professionally, is a director who really knows how to take advantage of the cinematic medium. Regardless of the quality of the plots of his films, it’s pretty well guaranteed that when you see a movie from Tarsem, you’ll be getting a visual feast in terms of costumes, production design, and cinematography. Tarsem began his career as a music video director, and his video for REM‘s hit song Losing My Religion won the Best Video of the Year at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards. He has also directed countless commercials for brands like Nike, Pepsi, and Coca Cola. In 2000, Tarsem made his feature film debut with The Cell, starring Jennifer Lopez, which wasn’t terrific, but was certainly memorable. His second film, The Fall, however, is an absolute masterpiece in my opinion, and apparently doesn’t use any CGI to achieve its effects, which is totally amazing. His third film was 2011’s Immortals, which I quite enjoyed – especially when compared to Wrath of the Titans, which was basically the same story done catastrophically badly. Most recently, Tarsem directed Mirror, Mirror, which, unfortunately, I haven’t heard many good things about. Still, I always look forward to seeing what Tarsem does next, because his films are very, very cool to watch and enjoy. He turns 51 today.